Today, May 26 2010, Art Linkletter, one of the kindest and most gracious individuals I ever met died at 97. In 1957, at the age of seven, I was fortunate enough to be one of the children he talked to on his very popular CBS television show, Art Linkletter's House Party.

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Comments:

Bob Boyce
11:18 AM Mon 5/31/2010

Thanks for bringing back some wonderful childhood memories. My sister and I used to watch Art Linkletter with my grandparents in the late 1950s when we all lived in Dogwood Acres.

Walter Newton
2:58 PM Fri 5/28/2010

I love the eclectic nature of this site. I never know what to expect when I check in every couple of weeks. Great macro photos of Chapel Hill&#39;s smallest residents, and a tribute to Art Linkletter because there is a Chapel Hill connection. Good Job!

Andrew Ray
10:52 AM Thu 5/27/2010

This show was a few decades before my time, but I must say you certainly were funny in your encounter with Art Linkletter. I became interested in Linkletter because he was a good friend of Walt Disney and I have read two biographies of Disney that talk a lot about him.<br \><br \>Since there is a photo of you in Disneyland, you may interested to know Linkletter hosted the opening of Disneyland in 1955 - and it&#39;s 50th anniversary in 2005!

S. Hilton
9:19 AM Thu 5/27/2010

The best thing for me about Chapel Hill Memories is how well it brings back the full dimension of a time and place. I wish we had people like Art Linkletter today hosting television shows. Now everything is sex and sensationalism.

Gail Young
8:46 PM Wed 5/26/2010

You seem to be the Forest Gump of Chapel Hill. The exploits in your life are so amazing and diverse. I look forward to reading about more of the interesting people you have been connected to.

Bob Jurgensen
6:52 PM Wed 5/26/2010

It is indeed a great loss and a very sad day - I remember watching his shows back then and they were so much fun but I never knew you were on his show Charly - that is so great! I bet you got to ride an airplane to CA too! He sure had a way with kids and seemed to know exactly what to say and how to react to get the audience howling with laughter. We will miss Art Linkletter and all he represented. Thanks for sharing this with us Charly.

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Chapel Hill Memories:

Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.

What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.

-- Charles Kuralt

Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".

There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.

The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.

The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.

William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.

The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.

Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.

Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.

The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.

Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.

Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.